From The Mathematics of Language:
10th and 11th Biennial Conference….
Berlin, Springer, 2010 —
“Creation Myths of Generative Grammar
and the Mathematics of Syntactic Structures”
by Geoffrey K. Pullum, University of Edinburgh
Abstract
“Syntactic Structures (Chomsky [6]) is widely believed to have laid
the foundations of a cognitive revolution in linguistic science, and
to have presented (i) the first use in linguistics of powerful new ideas
regarding grammars as generative systems, (ii) a proof that English
was not a regular language, (iii) decisive syntactic arguments against
context-free phrase structure grammar description, and (iv) a
demonstration of how transformational rules could provide a formal
solution to those problems. None of these things are true. This paper
offers a retrospective analysis and evaluation.”